Security seals for sealing container closures, meters, equipment and various other articles are used to reveal surreptitiously attempted or actual entry by damage to the seal. One conventional type of security seal includes a loop of locking filament that can seal an article when the loop of locking filament is threaded through the article and the loop is permanently secured at its opposite ends to the security seal by a one-way rotatable rotor within a socket of the housing body. Both of the free ends of the locking filament are irreversibly threaded and wound on the rotor through different bores.
Conventional rotary security seals such as these are typically made as an assembly of at least three pieces, namely a seal housing body having a socket, a rotor that is placed into a socket during assembly and a locking filament element of desired length that is initially separate from and independent of the security seal housing body and rotor. The rotor and socket in the housing body are arranged so that the rotor is irreversibly rotatable only in one direction within the socket.
For shipping to a customer, the manufacturer or shipper may irreversibly wind one end of the filament element on the rotor, and the customer is then expected to irreversibly wind the other end of the filament on the rotor. This can be problematic because irreversibly winding one end of the locking filament to the rotor prior to shipping can be labor intensive and time-consuming, increasing shipping and/or production costs. Moreover, because the manufacturer or shipper is partially assembling each security seal, the manufacturer or shipper typically packages, and/or ships the security seals as individual assemblies, which, in turn, can lower the efficiency of the production process.
If appropriate, the locking filament element may be shipped as a separate piece. Disadvantageously, this requires the person installing the security seal to irreversibly wind both ends of the filament on the rotor in the field to permanently secure both filament ends to the seal housing body. For instance, the person may be required to wind two ends of the filament sequentially or simultaneously through multiple bores through the housing and rotor to secure a container, closure, article or the like, which can be burdensome, frustrating and time consuming in the field.
In such known rotary seals, provision must also be made to enable two ends of the locking filament to be inserted through the housing body and the rotor and wound on the rotor, which requires extensive handling and manipulation to prepare the seals for shipment and for use in the field. Such a configuration thus typically requires two bores to be made in the housing body and the rotor to accommodate the two ends of the locking filament that must be inserted into and wound on the rotor.
In view of the shortcomings of conventional rotary seals, there exists a substantial need for a rotary security seal that is considerably improved in terms of actual handling in the field, production cost, and efficiency of shipping and packaging.